Mr. Speaker, I guess today would be one of those days that you wish you were involved in this debate having been a player not only of the Memorial Cup team you played on but a coach and referee in the NHL. We are certainly all aware of your participation in this national sport.
I begin by quoting from The Game which Ken Dryden and Roy McGregor put together. I think it summarizes most of the spirit and the theme that the member for Kamloops is putting forward in his bill today:
Hockey is part sport and recreation, part entertainment, part business, part community builder, social connector, and fantasy maker. It is played in every province and territory and in every part of every province and territory in this country.
Once a game for little boys, now little girls play hockey as well and so do older men and women, so do the blind and the mentally and physically handicapped, and although its symmetry is far from perfect hockey does far better than most in cutting across social divisions, young and old, rich and poor, urban and rural, French and English, east and west, able and disabled.
It is this breadth, its reach into the past, that makes hockey such a vivid instrument through which to view Canadian life.
I believe that Roy McGregor and Ken Dryden have captured what the member for Kamloops is trying to put forward today in this bill and I stand here in full support. I would like to talk about a couple of experiences that I have had in dealing with hockey as our national sport since I have been a member of Parliament and how I feel that it really pulls us together, not only as a House of Commons but as a country.
About the time when we were celebrating the 125th anniversary of our country a group of us from all parties got together. At that time most of us who were working on this idea were in the opposition. We went to the then minister responsible for national unity, the Right Hon. Joe Clark, and asked him to support us in bringing to Toronto 58 hockey teams from villages, towns and cities from all across Canada. From coast to coast, every region of our country, they all came to Toronto in April of that year to play in Maple Leaf Gardens in a 10-day tournament.
There were a few things that inspired me to believe that hockey truly is the sport that pulls us together as a country.
First I have to talk about the evening that the Dartmouth Whalers played in Maple Leaf Gardens against a team that most people thought would dominate the Dartmouth Whalers, a team in a AAA league in Toronto at the peewee level. At the end of the game the Dartmouth Whalers were victorious. They had beaten this Toronto championship team.
The following morning in the hotel I ran into the captain of the Dartmouth Whalers and I said to him: "Boy you had a pretty good game last night. We were all surprised that you did so well". He said: "Well, Mr. Mills, it was a funny experience. We walked into Maple Leaf Gardens. First of all when we looked up and saw those stands we felt the magic in the place. We felt good. But then when we got on the ice our energy quadrupled, our spirit was so great no one could beat us".
Those young peewees from Dartmouth said it all. Hockey provides an energy, a feeling and a spirit of pulling us together that I do not think any other sport in this country has. I am not
putting down any other sport, but I do believe it truly is our national sport.
I know you can relate to this, Mr. Speaker, because we both have sons who play in the Ontario Hockey League. Your son is a terrific player with the Kingston Frontenacs and I have had the pleasure of watching my son play this year with the Belleville Bulls. It is an experience going to these local rinks. I am amazed at the way it pulls the community together. It becomes the local event. The radio stations and the local TV stations and the whole community experience happens around hockey. There is a whole family experience that happens around hockey. This same experience is in every rink throughout our nation.
I am happy to stand here today in support of hockey as our national sport. I believe that hockey will be one of the things that ultimately keeps us together as a nation. I just cannot imagine the Montreal Canadiens being changed to the Montreal Blocs. It just does not work.